The Million Dollar Deception Read online

  Those were the plans Lewis and Freddy had. Start buying and flipping houses. They often sat around and dreamed of starting their own real-estate company, making the kind of money that would get Freddy out of the hood he was living in and earning Lewis the respect he felt he wasn’t getting from Monica.

  “You think that’s ever going to happen?” Lewis said.

  Freddy turned, the spatula in his hand. “I ain’t got no choice. I been living like this all my life, and I’m not bringing my child into this nonsense. I’m getting my people out of here. And I don’t care what I have to do to make that happen.”

  Freddy scooped the sandwich out of the pan, set it on a saucer, and halved it with a butter knife.

  “You sure Layla ain’t hungry? I can give her this one.”

  “Naw,” Lewis said, his head down. “They fed her at day care.”

  “Then go on take half. I been doing these the same way since we was ten. Two pieces of cheese and a slice of bologna in the middle.”

  “I’m cool.”

  “What’s up? My crib is the one that got broken into this morning, not the castle you live in.”

  “I ain’t living there no more.”

  “What you do this time?”

  “I proposed again last night.”

  “Why you keep doing that? I told you to stop doing that. She just got divorced. You ain’t even been living there a year. She probably still asking herself if she made the right decision in leaving her husband, and you trying to force her to take a new one?”

  “She ain’t going to play me,” Lewis said. “I’m living there, taking out the garbage, making her dinner, giving her the dick whenever she want it, telling her I love her. She got it made with me, but she don’t want to commit.”

  “Don’t even lie to yourself, Lewis. You two go at it like everybody else. You walk in late, not cleaning up after yourself, do the stupid shit that all men do, but she don’t give you a hard way to go.”

  “She does,” Lewis said. “She always complaining. Do this, don’t do that. Just because she makes the money, half the time she thinks she can treat me like a child. Got me going to school when she know I can’t stand that shit.”

  “That’s because she trying to make you better,” Freddy said, grabbing half of the sandwich and taking a bite. Then he grabbed the back of Lewis’s chair and yanked on it. “You need to get out my house and patch things up with Monica before she comes to her senses.”

  Lewis stood. “I ain’t going back there until she tell me we getting married.”

  “And if she don’t, where the fuck you gonna go? You ain’t got shit, Lewis.”

  “I got the job with you. We got the house we gonna sell, and the house after that, and the house after that, like you said.”

  Freddy just shook his head at his friend.

  “I feel like I ain’t got no say,” Lewis said. “Ain’t nothing stopping her from kicking me right out her crib, whenever she feel.”

  “Now she doesn’t have to, because you walked out first.”

  “We get married, I know she making a promise to me. I know she’s not seeing me as a child no more or just something to do no more, but a man she plans to be with her for the rest of her life. I know Layla gonna be taken care of. So if she can’t do that for me,” Lewis said, smirking a little bit, “I’m just going to have to wait till Waters and Ford Realty makes us enough money so I can buy my own castle.”

  Freddy smiled, gave Lewis some dap, and pulled him into a half hug. “Alright, man. You the one who’s going through it, so I ain’t gonna comment no more. I just hope you know what you doing.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  15

  As Monica wiped more tears from her eyes, she told herself she was tired of this.

  She rolled over in bed, glanced at the alarm clock. It was 10:18 P.M. and still no word from Lewis.

  She had been calling him all day. Monica had gone to pick up Layla at the normal time, only to be told that the child was not there.

  “Yeah, her father came to get her about an hour ago,” the young woman at day care told Monica.

  She went by Lewis’s job, only to find out that he was off today. Then as a last attempt, she called his best friend, Freddy, not half an hour ago.

  “Do you know where he is?” Monica asked, trying to hide the sound of crying in her voice.

  “I’m sorry, Monica, I haven’t talked to him today.”

  She was quiet on the phone, not believing him, knowing the relationship the two men had had for most of their lives. “I respect that,” she said, dabbing her cheek with a tissue. “But if you do talk to him, can you tell him I miss him and Layla and I want them to come back?”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  She had expected to get a call from Lewis not long after she had hung up with Freddy. It never came.

  She tried to stop crying in the shower, but couldn’t. Afterward, she went into Layla’s bedroom down the hall to make sure the little girl’s clothes were still in her drawers, her toys still in the closet.

  Back in her own bedroom, after slipping on a nightgown, Monica sat on her bed and tried to imagine things really being over for her and Lewis.

  As Tabatha told her, she had everything. The house she lived in had five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and three levels. She had all the money she could ever want, owned a business that she had brought back from mediocrity and had made to thrive, and she considered herself a decent woman.

  Monica thought that should have been enough for Lewis. But she realized now she was wrong.

  She pushed herself back into bed, starting to miss Lewis as though she was certain there would be no repairing the break between them. She began to think about the things she would miss most, and she could not deny that the little girl was one of them.

  When Monica thought there was no hope for her ever being a mother, Layla had come into her life. The child was two and a half years old then, needing all of the attention Monica was so happy to give to her. She quickly fell in love with her, the toddler sleeping with her and Lewis for the first three months after they had moved in.

  Layla had filled the void in Monica’s life that she thought she would never be able to fill, and now there was the possibility Layla would be taken from her. And that’s when the tears started to come again, and that’s when she turned to see that at 10:18 P.M., Lewis obviously didn’t care about all they could lose as much as Monica did.

  But then the phone was ringing, and as Monica reached over in the dark room and snatched the cordless handset from its cradle, she realized she had been torturing herself for no reason. It would be Lewis on the other end, saying he was as sorry as she was, that things would be all better again.

  “Hello,” Monica said, sniffing once again, trying to mask the fact that she had been crying.

  “Hello Monica,” the voice said.

  She didn’t recognize the voice at first. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Nate.”

  16

  Nate had not spoken to his ex-wife since the underhanded stunt she pulled at their divorce proceedings. The stunt that won her fifteen million dollars of his money, plus stocks.

  Agreeing to hand over that type of money to his wife of four years didn’t just sting, it scorched his ass, burned Nate to a crisp. But it was what it was, and all he could do was try to get on with his life.

  But he failed.

  A week after the divorce hearing, Nate found himself calling Abbey Kurt, a woman in his company who did investigative work for him. He gave her Tori’s employment file and whatever other information he had on her.

  “Dig up whatever you can on this woman. Then let me know when you find her,” were Nate’s instructions.

  Crossing Tori off the list had given Nate a satisfying sense of closure. Last night, at eighteen minutes after ten o’clock, he had picked up the phone and called Monica.

  She was crying.

  “Is it okay that I called you?” Nate said, easing i
nto the conversation. “I know our relationship hasn’t been especially amicable, if you can even call it a relationship. If you want me to hang up and never call you again, I will understand.”

  It took Monica a moment to respond. “No,” she finally said, as if still uncertain. “No.”

  But Nate could still hear that crying tone in her voice. When he asked what was wrong, Monica said it was nothing.

  Nate sensed it had to do with that clown, Lewis, she was dating and thought maybe getting close to her would be easier than he had thought.

  For the first five minutes their conversation was simply curt and civil, asking and answering how each of them was doing. After running out of conversation and a long silence, Nate said, “I’m calling because I know you’ve seen how your stock in Kenny Corporation has dropped.”

  “I have,” Monica said. She had stopped crying, but her voice was still low.

  “I noticed you haven’t sold any of it.”

  “I have faith that you’ll do whatever you have to do to bring back its value.”

  “The company was having trouble for a while. You know why that was, don’t you?” Nate said, having to stop himself from sounding too accusatory.

  “No. Why?”

  Nate decided to change the subject, not admit to Monica just how distraught he had been after the divorce. “It was brought to my attention that you’re now a business owner, and your stores are thriving.”

  “Really. Who brought that to your attention?”

  “Monica,” Nate said, avoiding her question. “I don’t want this to be adversarial. I was calling because you know how much I value your opinion. I can’t deny that part of the reason my business is a success was because of your input. I was just hoping that you could help me now.”

  The next morning, Nate stepped off the elevator and into the lobby where large silver letters, reading KENNY CORPORATION hung above the heads of two attractive dark-haired receptionists wearing phone headsets.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kenny,” the women said, almost in unison.

  Nate nodded, walking farther onto the floor, past dozens of cubicles, along the east side, which was constructed of floor-to-ceiling windows, giving a spectacular view of Lake Michigan.

  Nate took the long way to his office, through the break room, just to see if anyone was lounging on the clock.

  The room was empty.

  On the wall hung a fifty-two-inch plasma flat screen TV, airing twenty-four-hour business news and scrolling stock numbers. Nate’s business had encountered some pretty serious problems, and although he had stopped himself from telling Monica, he could attribute them to her.

  After his divorce, Nate had sat at home, depressed for a month, delegating his authority to his V.P., an older man named Eric Stancil.

  Nate would receive daily phone calls from Stancil on situations needing Nate’s attention.

  Nate would simply order him to “handle it.” Upon Nate’s return, there was much catching up to do—clients that had gone neglected, deals that could have been brokered better if only Nate had been there.

  It was something he wasn’t concerned about at the time, and not until he had been back at work for three weeks did it finally start to hit him just how serious the situation was. The company had suffered losses greater than ever before, but since then, Nate had been diligent in working to return Kenny Corporation to its former status.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kenny,” Nate’s secretary said when he reached his office. Sandra Browning was the woman who had finally replaced Tori. “Here are your messages, sir,” the short, thirtysomething redhead said, standing from the desk chair to hand Nate the slips. Nate stepped into his huge, window-lined office and sat behind the massive oak desk.

  Last night, after Nate’s request for Monica’s help, her end had gone silent. A moment later, he heard her chuckling a little.

  “You serious?” she said.

  “Very. Considering the number of Kenny Corp. shares you hold, I thought you might be open to the idea.”

  She accepted, and Nate told her they would need to meet.

  “Where?” Monica asked.

  Nate told her after being in his office every day, sometimes for twelve hours on end, he didn’t want to have to stick around there a moment longer than he had to.

  It had taken him almost a year to bring the Tori situation to a close, and Nate didn’t want to spend that kind of time closing on Monica, so at the risk of being overly aggressive, Nate said, “I bought a new house. We can meet there. You can tell me what you think of it.”

  Again Monica was silent for a moment, making Nate think he might have blown a very important opportunity.

  “Okay,” Monica finally said, softly. “Give me the time and the address and I’ll be there.”

  17

  Last night in his hotel room, Layla sleeping beside him, Lewis had gotten a call from Freddy.

  “She’s hating life without you, man. She’s ready for you to come back.”

  “She said that?” Lewis said, pressing his cell phone tight to the side of his face.

  “Yeah, said that she missed both of ya’ll and wants you two to come home.”

  After the call, Lewis stretched back in bed, thumbed the volume on the TV back up two clicks, and thought about what his next move would be. He thought of calling Monica that second, telling her he was on his way home, but he didn’t want to seem frantic. He knew Monica knew Freddy would call him, so he wanted her to think he got the message but was still deliberating as to whether or not he wanted to come back.

  He tilted his head, saw the time on the alarm clock: 10:35 P.M. Lewis would make her wait, go home tomorrow sometime during the day and tell her he accepted her apology and hoped she had decided to go ahead and say yes to his proposal. Lewis smiled to himself, his arms folded behind his head, his feet crossed at the end of the bed.

  He wished he had not taken the ring back earlier today, but he had spent more than eleven thousand dollars of Monica’s money on it. He only did that because Lewis knew he would be able to pay it off once the house sold. Freddy’s uncle Henry said together, the two of them should clear around thirty grand.

  But still, Lewis didn’t like using her card, didn’t like taking her money like that. He felt it gave her one more thing to hold over his head. Everything would be all right though, he thought, as he allowed his eyes to close. But Lewis had only slept until a little past 2:00 A.M.

  He was up, out of bed, scooping Layla up as he had the other night when he took her away from Monica.

  Now he was taking her back.

  All he could think about while in bed was how much he loved Monica, how relieved he was that she still wanted him. He had jerked out of his sleep, realizing what a fool he was to be playing with her like that. Half an hour later, Lewis was at home. He carefully climbed the stairs leading to the bedroom he had been sharing with Monica.

  The door was slightly ajar. His daughter still in his arms, he turned around, shouldered the door open, and backed into the room.

  It was dark, but Monica was there. She lay on her side but was not asleep. Lewis heard her sobbing quietly. He walked around the bed to her, lowered himself to his knees, placing Layla beside Monica.

  Monica opened her arms, took the child, hugged her, and kissed her face.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Lewis said, wrapping his arms around the two of them.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “I shouldn’t have walked out of here, but I need to know that you want to be with me. I know how bad you were treated when you were married. But I would never hurt you like that. I promise.”

  “I know, Lewis.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife.”

  Monica was looking down at his sleeping little girl. She wiped a tear from her own cheek. Monica stared at Lewis for a moment longer than he thought was necessary, and then finally said, “Okay.”

/>   Lewis took Layla to her room and put her to bed, then he and Monica made love. She cried some more, telling him she never wanted him to leave her again. He promised he wouldn’t.

  They went to sleep in each other’s arms, and when Lewis woke up this morning, he had never felt more optimistic about their relationship. Then Monica walked out of the bathroom, half dressed for work, and said, “There’s something I want to tell you.”

  Lewis smiled and sat up in bed, bare chested. “What’s that, baby?”

  “I spoke with my ex-husband, and I’m going to be seeing him tomorrow evening.”

  18

  The first time Lewis saw Nate Kenny was more than a year before, when the man was staggering toward Lewis’s car after he had plowed into the back of Kenny’s priceless Bentley, totaling it.

  Lewis had no insurance, no money to pay for the destruction he did. That bastard Mr. Kenny was going to call the police on him, was going to get him carted off to jail.

  Mr. Kenny said Lewis’s only way out was to seduce Monica, allowing Kenny to get proof of her infidelity so that he could divorce her.

  “And that’s what the fuck I did!” Lewis said to Freddy as they ate burgers and fries at a greasy fast food joint down the block from the management company. “Now he’s trying to get back with her. I told Monica that’s what he’s doing.”

  “And what did she say?” Freddy said, sipping his Coke.

  “She said it’s some damn business meeting. That his company was doing bad, and he wants her advice to make some changes.”

  “And you don’t believe her?”

  “I believe her. I don’t believe his ass, because he’s talking about meeting at his house tomorrow night.”

  Freddy popped a fry into his mouth, then laughed. “Aw yeah, man. He’s on some shit. No doubt. So what you gonna do?”